USA TODAY Review

'Redbreast' hits its treacherous target

Author Jo Nesb's scenes are so vivid that you can imagine them playing across the big screen. The pacing is swift. The plot is precise and intricate. The characters are intriguing. And the novel combines two of the best cinematic genres: war sagas and crime thrillers.

In the war story, young Norwegians fight for Hitler against the Russians in the frozen trenches on the Eastern front. Some of them are swashbuckling, but some are scared enough to defect to the Russians to save their own lives.

While many of the Norwegians die, one apparent casualty may actually survive to haunt his enemies decades later. Those who stick to their guns are tried as traitors by the Norwegian government after Germany's defeat. Their legacy is a nascent neo-Nazi movement in Oslo at the turn of the 21st century.

Police officer Harry Hole has mixed it up with the skinhead nationalists, most recently when one bashed in the head of a Vietnamese immigrant with a baseball bat.

An accidental shooting as the American president arrives in Norway for a peace conference gets Harry a so-called promotion to an inconsequential paper-pushing job. But one piece of paper noting the discovery of spent shell casings from a high-powered Marklin rifle that was smuggled into the country draws him back into the game.

The rare, expensive weapon points toward treachery that reaches far beyond the hate crimes of some skinheads and all the way back to a Norwegian soldier from the Eastern front who fell in love with a nurse while recuperating in a Vienna hospital during the war.

Nesb, a Norwegian himself, has won European literary awards but is essentially unknown to Americans. That should change. In Don Bartlett's translation, Nesb leads readers with ease from episodes of violence to romance to pathos. And sometimes he beautifully blends all three into one sequence, such as when the nurse and the soldier share their last dance while Allied bombs rain down on Vienna.

Hole may resemble too much the stereotypical hard-edged but soft-hearted detective who battles his demons, but he's still worth rooting for as Nesb deftly challenges him with expanding criminal and political intrigue. Through Hole's story, Nesb also offers insight into a Norwegian society still coming to terms with its role in World War II.

Like Harry, The Redbreast is surprisingly witty at times and often grim. But it's always smart.